One Hundred and Fifty-Ninth Day:
Thursday, 20th June, 1946
[Page 9]
A. After the establishment of the blocked industries, the
labour commitment from the occupied countries in the West to
Germany decreased to a fraction of what it had been. For
instance, before that, eighty to a hundred thousand workers
came from France to Germany every month. After the
establishment of the blocked industries, this figure
decreased to the insignificant number of three to four
thousand a month, as is evident from Exhibit RF 22.
[Page 10]
Did you and your offices endorse the policies followed by
Sauckel at that time?
A. No. At that time the first serious differences arose
about the "blocking" of these workers for labour commitments
in Germany. This came about through the fact that the loss
of my workers employed in industry in the occupied countries
was larger than the number of workers who came to Germany
from the occupied countries of the West.
This may be seen from Exhibit RF 22. According to it about
four hundred thousand workers were transported from France
to Germany in 1943. Industrial workers in France, however,
decreased by eight hundred thousand, and the French workers
in France who worked for Germany decreased by four hundred
and fifty thousand workers.
Q. Why did you demand to take over the entire German
production from the Ministry of Economics in the summer of
1943?
A. According to my opinion, there was still a considerable
labour reserve latent in Germany, because the German peace
economy had not been converted into a war economy on a
sufficiently large scale. Here was, in my opinion, next to
the German women workers, the largest reserve of the German
labour supply.
Q. What did you do when the total economy was handed over to
you by the Ministry of Economics?
A. At that time, I had already worked out the following
plan. A large part of the industry in Germany produced
so-called consumer goods. Consumer goods are, for instance,
shoes, clothing, furniture, and other articles necessary for
the armed forces and for civilian requirements. In the
occupied Western territories, however, the industries which
supplied these products were kept idle, as the raw materials
were lacking.
My plan was to deprive German industries of the raw
materials which were produced in Germany, such as synthetic
wool, and send them to the West. Thereby, in the long run, a
million workers were to be supplied with work in the
occupied Western territories, and thus I would have freed
one million German workers in Germany for armament
production.
Q. Did you not want to increase armament production or help
it along in France as well?
A. No. However, all these plans failed. Before the outbreak
of war, the French Government did not succeed in building up
armament production in France, and I also failed, or rather
my agencies failed, in this task.
Q. What were your intentions with this new plan? What
advantages did you gain?
A. I will comment on it quite briefly. Through this plan I
could close down numbers of industries in Germany and in
that way free not only workers, but also factories and
administrative personnel for armament production. I also
saved electricity and transport. Apart from that, since
these industries had never been of importance for the war
effort, they had hardly received any foreign workers; and
thus I almost exclusively obtained German workers for the
German production - workers, of course, who were more
valuable, much more valuable than any foreign workers.
Q. Did such a plan not entail dangers and disadvantages for
the German industrial development?
A. The disadvantages were considerable, since any closing
down of an industry meant the taking out of machinery, and
at the end of the war a re-conversion to peace-time
production would take at least six to eight months. At that
time, at a Gauleiter meeting at Posen, I said that if we
wanted to be successful in this war, we would have to be
those who made the greater sacrifices.
Q. How was this plan put into reality?
[Page 11]
DR. FLAECHSNER: Yes, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: It is a mere waste of our time to go into the
details of these plans.
DR. FLAECHSNER: I wanted to show that the tendencies, or
rather the tendency followed by the defendant in his policy
was to employ foreigners in their own country and to use the
German reserves solely for his own purpose; that is, for
armament proper. Thus everything which -
THE PRESIDENT: But, Dr. Flaechsner, that is a question of
efficiency, not of legality. What he is saying is that he
had a lot of German workers, good workers, and they were
producing consumer goods instead of producing armament
goods. He thought it better to transfer certain industries
so that the workers could remain in France or the other
Western countries.
What have we got to do with that? If they were forced to
work there, it is just as illegal as if they had been
brought to Germany to be forced to work. At least, that is
the suggestion that is made by the prosecution.
DR. FLAECHSNER: Yes, but I thought and believed -
THE PRESIDENT (interposing): We will adjourn now.
(A recess was taken.)
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will hear defendant's counsel at
two o'clock tomorrow afternoon on the question of the
apportionment of time for the defendants' counsel's
speeches.
BY DR. FLAECHSNER:
Q. Herr Speer, please tell us briefly how you and Mons.
Bichelonne, the French Minister of Economics, agreed on your
programme; but, please be concise.
A. Immediately after taking over production in September,
1943, I agreed with Bichelonne that a large-scale programme
of shifting industry from Germany to France should be put
into operation, according to the system I already described.
In an ensuing conference, Bichelonne stated that he was not
authorized to talk about labour assignment with me for
Minister Laval had expressly forbidden him to do so. He had
to point out, he said, that a further recruitment of workers
on the present scale would make it impossible to adhere to
the programme which we had agreed upon. I was of the same
opinion. We agreed, therefore, that the entire French
production, beginning with coal, right up to the finished
products, should be declared as "blocked industries." In
this connection, both of us were perfectly aware of the fact
that this would almost stop the recruitment of workers for
Germany, since, as I have already explained, every Frenchman
was free to enter one of these blocked industries, once he
had been called up for work in Germany. I gave Bichelonne my
word that I should adhere to this principle for a lengthy
period, and, in spite of all difficulties which occurred, I
kept my promise to him.
DR. FLAECHSNER: Mr. President, in connection with this I
should like to quote from Document R-124, which is Exhibit
USA 179. It is on Page 37 of the English document book. It
is a speech of Sauckel's before the Central Planning Board
which has been mentioned frequently. I quote:
[Page 12]
Q. Herr Speer, what were the consequences of this
change-over of labour commitment from Germany to France?
A. I have already mentioned that. Beginning with 1st
October, recruitment of labour almost came to a complete
standstill.
DR. FLAECHSNER: Later on I shall comment in detail on the
documentary evidence of the effect of this Speer-Bichelonne
plan and on the policy pursued by Speer in connection with
the various attempts to carry out this principle at a later
date. At this moment I shall, therefore, discontinue the
questions on the subject and I shall confine myself to
quoting from the official French Document, RF 22, Page 20 of
the English text of my document book, Page 17 of the German
and French texts: I quote:
THE PRESIDENT: That is all cumulative; that's what you have
been proving three or four times already.
DR. FLAECHSNER: Very well, I shall not continue with it.
BY DR. FLAECHSNER:
Q. I only want to rectify a mistake, Herr Speer. It is
mentioned in the document that you had something to do with
organising forced labour in France; is that true?
A. No, the organization of labour in France was not under my
control.
Q. You have already mentioned that this Verlagerungsprogramm
(shifting of labour commitment) was not only confined to
France. Will you tell me to which other countries that also
applied?
A. The programme was extended to Belgium, Holland, Italy and
Czechoslovakia. The entire production in these countries was
also declared blocked, and the labourers in these blocked
industries were given the same protection as in France; even
after the meeting with Hitler on 4th January, 1944, during
which the new programme for the West for 1944 was agreed
upon, I adhered to this policy. The result was that during
the first half of 1944 only 33,000 workers came from France
to Germany of the five hundred thousand planned for at that
conference; and from other countries, too, only about ten
per cent of the proposed workers were taken to Germany.
Q. What about the figures applying to workers from the
Protectorate?
A. Everywhere only a fraction of the numbers proposed were
sent.
Q. A Document 1739-PS, Exhibit RF 10, has been submitted by
the prosecution. It is on Page 23 of the English text of my
document book and it is a report by Sauckel, dated December,
1942; furthermore, there is Document 1290-PS, on Page 24 of
the English text, which has also been submitted. These
documents appear to show that, according to Sauckel's
personal assertions, from the beginning of his activities
until March, 1943, there was an excess supply of labour. Is
that true?
A. Yes, that is true.
Document 16-PS, Exhibit USA 168, which is on Page 25 of the
English text of my document book, also shows that Sauckel
was not in favour of using German women in the armament
industry, but in the summer of 1942 he had several hundred
thousand Ukrainian girls placed at the disposal of German
householders.
These three documents, in their entirety, show that Speer,
in his Ministry, cannot be held responsible for the total
figure of workers who came to Germany.
[Page 13]
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Flaechsner, you are not stating the
exhibit numbers of any of these documents, so that you are
not offering them properly in evidence at all. I mean you
are referring now to 02, which is some numbering which we
have got nothing whatever to do with.
DR. FLAECHSNER: May I then present this document as Exhibit
8?
THE PRESIDENT: What about the one before? Oh, that is
already in. Perhaps it would be well to submit a list
afterwards, giving the proper exhibit numbers for all these
documents you are referring to.
DR. FLAECHSNER: Yes, Mr. President, I shall be glad to do
that. I should like to quote - this is a remark made by
Speer:
THE PRESIDENT: What was the document you were referring to?
DR. FLAECHSNER: Mr. President, the filled-in questionnaires
in the supplement volume of my document book, which I hope
is now in the hands of the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, it is.
DR. FLAECHSNER: Besides, I should like to reserve the right
to submit these documents in toto at the end of my
examination. I am only taking the liberty of referring to
the points in which the witnesses have dealt with this
question.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
DR. FLAECHSNER: Furthermore, we are informed about the
different opinions presented by Sauckel and Speer through a
conference of Speer's during a meeting of the Central
Planning Board on 21st December, 1943. I refer to Page 27 of
the English text of my document book and it will be my
Exhibit 9. I quote -
TH E PRESIDENT: You do not need to quote it, Dr. Flaechsner.
I thought I had made it clear to you that we are not
concerned with the efficiency or the inefficiency of these
plans.
BY DR. FLAECHSNER:
Q. Herr Speer, there is an important document submitted by
the prosecution. It is the minutes of a meeting with Hitler
on 4th January, 1944. It has been submitted as Document
1292-PS, Exhibit USA 225. I refer to Page 28 of the English
text of my document book. How was this meeting arranged?
A. It was called by request of Hitler.
[Page 14]
A. To settle the arguments between Sauckel and myself.
Q. And what was Hitler's decision?
A. His decision was a useless compromise, as was often the
case with Hitler. These blocked industries were to be
maintained, and for this purpose Sauckel was given the order
to obtain three and a half million workers from the occupied
territories. Hitler gave strictest instructions through the
High Command of the Armed Forces to the military commanders,
that Sauckel's request should be met by all means possible.
Q. Did you agree to this decision?
A. No, not at all; for it meant that my programme of
shifting the labour commitment to the West would collapse.
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(Part 3 of 10)
[DR. FLAECHSNER continues his direct examination of Albert Speer] "When I came to France the next time my agencies in
France stated: Minister Bichelonne has concluded an
agreement with Minister Speer according to which only
French workers are to be considered for employment in
France and none of them need go to Germany any more."
"Finally, a real hostility arose between Sauckel and
Speer who was commissioned with the organization of
forced labour in the occupied territories."
And then a few lines farther on:
"The superiority of the first mentioned over the latter
which made itself felt more and more during the course of
the occupation facilitated to a large degree the
resistance against the removal of workers."
The text shows that -
"For this it is necessary to supply the industries with
new German workers, even unskilled labour, because I
cannot replace with foreigners all those whom we have to
give up as soldiers. The German supply is simply becoming
too scanty. Already today we are having one case of
sabotage after another and we do not know their origin.
Cases of sabotage will increase. The measures which will
have to be taken in order to switch at least one million
Germans over to the armament industry are extremely hard
and will, in my opinion, lower the entire living standard
of the upper classes. Therefore, it means that, roughly
speaking, we are all going to be proletarians for the
duration of the war. This matter has to be considered
coolly and soberly. There is no other alternative."
This opinion and project of Speer, namely, to exploit
ruthlessly the labour reserve within Germany, was not
realised until the summer of 1944. And this was a subject
for argument between Speer on one side and Sauckel and the
Gauleiter on the other. The testimony of the witnesses in
the questionnaires will deal with it. To assist the Tribunal
I should like to state that with Schieber it is the answer
to question 22; with Roland, to I and 4; with Kehrl, to 9;
and in the case of Schmelte, answers to 13 and 16.
Unfortunately, I cannot give the pages in the English book,
Mr. President, because I have not yet seen it.